Several local chapters of Black fraternities made the trek to Cheltenham Youth Facility in southern Prince George’s County, Maryland to speak with the young men about becoming better men.
“A lot of these young men definitely come from families where no one had gone to college, so we wanted to introduce them to some men who’d done that,” said Frank Malone, community service chairman of the Pi Upsilon Lambda chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha. “We have lawyers, doctors, masters of divinitym and just a wide range of people to talk to the kids.”
The event was Malone’s brainchild. He said that his chapter had visited the facility previously and wanted to do something bigger.
“We’d been out here three times before and we reached out to the other frats to see if they wanted to do an event with us,” Malone said. “All of the frats wanted to do it.”
Members of local chapters of Kappa Alpha Psi, Omega Psi Phi, Phi Beta Sigma, Iota Phi Theta and Groove Phi Groove started meeting in February to plan the event. Then, on a sunny day in Cheltenham, the men met a group of juvenile offenders who needed the help.
The members broke up into six different groups with different age groups of youth to discuss topics such as conflict resolution, self-esteem, sexually transmitted diseases, respecting women, and leadership. At the end, there was a free-flowing wrap-up session where speakers gave testimonies about their own life experience.
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article courtesy of BlackVoiceNews.com
